


It is time to work for the Lord

by Tabata



Series: Leoverse [134]
Category: Glee
Genre: Age Difference, Alternate Universe, Genetic Engineering, Human Trafficking, Implied/Referenced Underage Sex, Improper Use of Catholic Rituals, Inaccurate Catholicism, M/M, Pseudo-Catholicism, Religious Content
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-01-20
Updated: 2018-01-20
Packaged: 2019-03-07 05:50:49
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Underage
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,514
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13428144
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Tabata/pseuds/Tabata
Summary: Leo has been His Holiness' only altar boy / protégé for a very long time, but as of now he will be sharing the role (and the honor) with another boy Blaine has especially chosen for him. It's his duty to teach Cody the ropes on how to prepare the church for Mass.





	It is time to work for the Lord

**Author's Note:**

> WARNING: This story is an AU from the original 'verse. What happens in here has little to none correlation with what happens in Leonard Karofsky-Hummel VS The world or Broken Heart Syndrome. The characters involved are (mostly) the same, but situations and relationships between them may be completely different.
> 
> We don't know much about this particular instance of the universe, except that Blaine is the Pope (yes, the pope), in some kind of post-apocalyptic, but technological advanced world, where religion is strictly intertwined with politics (go figure), media and entertainment industry. And that he's got two boys with him. You'll know more about it as soon as we do.  
> Please note, as in [Believe that you shine when you're silver](http://archiveofourown.org/works/6008701), this is not and doesn't want to be a depiction of any real religion.
> 
> Written for: Lande di Fandom's COW-T 8  
> Prompt: ceremony

It is not a very long distance from the loft upstairs, where they live, and the Church below, and Leo usually walks it quickly, gathering his thoughts on what he has to do and what should have been done and hasn't, in that practical way that only routine itself can give you, but today is a special day and he's taking his time to enjoy his descent. 

The elevator dates back to a time when the Pope wouldn't walk a step without a court worthy of a king and so it is built to accommodate a group of twenty; but given that Blaine's inner circle consists in exactly two people – actually, it was only one just a little while ago – it looks quite empty now with them inside. The elevator is covered in mirrors on three sides, so there's no escaping their reflection. Leo and Cody are quite a pair, and there's no mistaking Blaine's choice of Cody for a casual one. They both have the same color scheme – raven hair and blue eyes – and yet their differences in height and body structure manage to create a much deeper contrast than a different coloring would have.

Leo is tall and lean like a reed, his skin darker despite the little time he spends outside. He's lazy as they come, but he tans easily and the sun has turned him a warmer shade. His high cheekbones and sharp features speak of impure genetics – which is something that appeals to His Holiness – but his curled hair places his heritage right within the City, where is a common trait among those who have lived here for generations; Blaine himself shares this characteristic with him. His almond shaped eyes give some softness to an otherwise quite angular body, but he still looks a lot like the wild, untamed creature that he was when Blaine found him and he still is.

On the contrary, Cody is smaller and pale like the moon. His delicate bone structure and his fair skin make him look like a fine porcelain doll, and his big baby blue eyes, often wide open in wonder, just adds to the illusion. His body has a softness quality to it; the tender curve of his hips and ass, the thickness of his thighs and the softness of his belly are a miracle to look at and make you wonder if Cody once had – or would have had – a specific purpose that wasn't met. His genetics are clearly expensive, and that is what firstly prompted Blaine to purchase him. His Holiness doesn't understand why someone who had the means and the connections to give birth to such perfection would later abandon it in the market. It is quite a mystery; one that titillates him a great deal and that he's fully intended to solve. 

Cody has been with them for about four months now and Leo warmed up to him faster than he did with everybody else. In fact, he didn't warm up to anybody in the compound – it's not like he hates all those bishops, ministers and secretaries that mill about the place for one reason or another, but he doesn't care for them one bit and he doesn't have time nor will to pretend he does – so that's a miracle in itself. But again, Cody is not here to counsel Blaine or discuss laws and regulations, he wasn't hired to ban and veto things. He is here for Leo, which makes everything different.

His purchase was made during one of Blaine's routine visits to the markets, and it was unplanned. Or at least that is what Blaine says. Leo wasn't there – according to etiquette, he couldn't be – so he can't know for sure. It was quite a surprise when Blaine came back, holding this stranger by the hand, and said, “I have a present for you.” Leo can't forget the sudden annoyance at this tiny little thing coming to upset his and Blaine's balance. He hadn't asked for a playmate or a plaything – whichever he was – and he didn't want him; but whenever Blaine decides something, that is always the only decision that counts. So, Cody stayed.  
Leo wouldn't give him back now, but he didn't know back then.

After being purchased, Cody went straight from the children market to His Holiness private apartments, and Blaine didn't allow him to be seen outside of them. Until today. So when the doors of the elevators open on the hall downstairs, there's a little crowd waiting for him and Leo. Blaine made no secret of having bought him – in fact the purchase itself, if not Cody's identity, was very public indeed, with all the media coverage and everything – but, as it had been for Leo, Blaine wanted Cody to get used to him and their life, before feeding him to the media circus that surrounds him. Cody came to them broken on some level – that much they know, even if the details are still blurry – and it had to be especially readied for what being one of His Holiness' proteges means.

It turns out he still quite isn't as they walk down the hall. Everybody is looking at them, as it was to be expected. They're murmuring very loudly and pointing at him, despite the rudeness of the gesture, and Cody doesn't feel at ease. He takes a step closer to Leo and looks the floor stubbornly to shut all these stranger people out. Leo reaches down and takes his hand, which he holds all the way to the Church.

The internal doors that lead to the Church are always closed electronically for security reasons, and with the exception of his Holiness, Leo and the Mother Superior who manages the nuns' services, nobody has the card to open them. Leo presents it to the two guards in black at the sides of the doors. He comes across some guard or other at least a hundred times a day, but protocol requires them to officially recognizes him every time. At least they don't pat him down anymore. One of them glares at Cody for a moment, but then he must put two and two together, and nods. Leo swipes his card and they are inside.

The Church was built some hundreds years ago – Leo's been told the story more times than he can count and yet his brain seems insusceptible to learning dates – and it was the warehouse of a well established company of adult entertainment before it became a place of worship. Blaine finds this detail exceptionally amusing, but people are not and cannot be made privy of the information. It is divided in two section, one smaller but more lavishly decorated that hosts the altar and His Holiness stage; one bigger and simpler where all the available seats are placed in concentric semicircles.

The altar of the Church is a steel-and-concrete block, coated in white paint like the rest of the building. It sits right at the center of the stage, and the skylight right above it makes it so that it's always bathed in light. The moon is drawing a perfect circle on it right now, showcasing the disturbing neatness of his surface.  
Every night, before mass, the altar gets cleaned three times, one for each State of Purity. Leo doesn't do any of those cleanings tho, because given the position he holds, that would be way beneath him—Blaine has been nauseatingly specific with it. That is the nuns' job. They come in every day at five, always in an even number. They pray, they clean and they're gone by the time Leo shows up at the Church.

Leo is not supposed to clean but, like the altar, he's required to impeccably achieve the three states before coming in here and prepare the place for the ceremony. It's a ritual within the ritual he has to perform to make the Church ready for Mass, and it's one of the many things that makes this religion pointlessly complicated. Purity is a multifaceted concept for the new scriptures, but all of them agree that it must be achieved in both mind and body. Purity of spirit is kind of consequential at that point, but it's largely considered the third state. Therefore, to be fit to perform the ritual of preparation, Leo has to meditate and bathe; unless Blaine is available to bestow his holiness upon him.

As of today, that goes for Cody too.

At the beginning, Leo didn't like the idea of sharing the only real job that he had with another person. He was extremely jealous of it – like he is of any other thing that belongs to him – and refused the concept all together. But Blaine told him that he could teach Cody what he had to do and that changed everything. If he doesn't like the idea of sharing, Leo surely loves the idea of explaining things he knows to other people, especially someone like Cody who seems to know nothing of basically anything. So, suddenly a very annoying change became a thrilling task that he can't wait to perform.

“All the paraphernalia are here,” he says, pressing his fingers on a specific section of the wall that slides to the side to reveal an hidden cabinet. Cody tears his eyes away from the empty magnitude of the Church and watches as Leo takes out all the items one by one. There's a cloth for the altar, a huge book, an extremely decorated cup and a non-descriptive bottle, a little box and a few other things Cody has no idea what they are.

“The cloth goes first,” Leo continues, placing it on the altar. “You make sure there are no wrinkles on it, and then you place the book at the center. The knife, the cup and the two red bracelets go to the right of it, precisely in this order. The box, the bottle and the three blue bracelets go to the left, still minding the order.”

Cody listens carefully and tries to commit everything to memory, but it's a lot to take in for someone who only attended mass remotely before and couldn't see all the details. “He will grab everything in reverse order from the bracelets to the most inner objects that are closer to the book. This is the order of the chants and you can't mess it up.”

Cody nods, standing respectfully a few feet away from the altar, not knowing if he can or cannot touch anything yet. He's been cleansed as Leo was, but he decided this morning that he won't place a finger on anything unless Leo gives him permission to.

“After that, you want to open the bottle,” Leo continues, placing the cork right next to the bottle, “because seeing him open it like an innkeeper isn't proper. But don't spill one single drop on the cloth. One, it's wasteful, so it's a sin, and it taints the altar. Two, it looks bad on camera.”

Evening Mass is the highest-rating show on all the three hundreds and forty-five channels, even more so since the Soul Caring Act in July made it mandatory for every TV station to air the whole ceremony every day. People can either watch it or turn their devices off, but a new act is being discussed right now to prevent them from doing just that. Besides, with the jumbotrons in the streets visible from any corner of the city, it's already a watch-or-watch situation.

As the Act passed, the sponsors went wild, fighting each other to spend all their money on the only primetime spot left available. His Holiness, usually inclined to unite rather than divide, saw fit to make an exception, and so the traditionally three-parts, one hour long show was changed to last two hours, with twelve unskippable commercial breaks to accommodate every paying business company that wanted to _contribute to spread the gospel_.

That is why a camera-friendly set-up became quickly part of Leo's preparation.

“Where are the cameras?” Cody asks, curiously. He looked around before, but he didn't see them, and yet he knows that they must be there somewhere. He watched the mass on television a few times when he was at the market, but he has no idea how the ceremony is shot.

“They are basically everywhere,” Leo answers him, climbing down the three steps that elevate the stage from the ground and pointing up. “There are ten of them up there all around the ceiling. And two will hover in front of the altar during the ceremony. There are three more on the back for the reverses. Plus, Blaine's got a micro-camera in his tiara. Sometimes they use that footage too to give mass a more first-person narrative or something.”

Some people consider that blasphemy – only the pope should give mass – but Blaine doesn't care. A lot of what he does is considered blasphemy by a lot of people, and yet he is the longest-running and most beloved pope of the past seventy years. It must count for something.

“Are we going to be here?” Cody asks.

Leo finds out he's happy to hear him talk so much lately. When he arrived he was basically mute, and that was a little bit sad and upsetting. “We are going to sit with the bishops, here,” he explains, showing him a row of richer seats on the right side of the stage. “They are boring and rude, but we get to sit in front of them, so it's fine.”

Cody chuckles, and then he covers his mouth with both his hands, mortified. This is a holy place, and he should be more respectful. “I'm sorry.”

“Don't be, chuckles are pretty sounds that give joy to the universe,” Leo says, repeating what Blaine said to him the first time he laughed in here, except that, unlike Cody, he wasn't sorry at all. “And your chuckle is even prettier than most.”

“Thank you.” Cody blushes, but chuckles again, covering his face with both his hands. They keep disappearing in the sleeves of his shirt. Leo lent him one of his own while the tailors are making his wardrobe, but it is too big for him. He looks even smaller than he is in it.

“Come on, we need to help him dress,” Leo says, pressing his fingers on the panel of the cabinet. It slides back into place, making the wall even again. “And we need to get ready too. The show starts in fifteen minutes.”

Cody follows him to the door, but then he hesitates thinking about all those people out there waiting to steal another glimpse of him. He likes the place, he likes His Holiness and he likes Leo, but he doesn't like them. Being exposed to preying eyes makes him feel unease. But Leo reaches out and offers him his hand again. When Cody gives it to him, Leo holds it tight and smiles. And from that moment on, he will hardly ever let it go.

This, among many, will be their ceremony.


End file.
